Adam Nettina is getting way too high-falutin’ for us, getting interviewed by ESPN’s Bruce Feldman about a story he wrote on Andre Byrd. The story is about yet another football set-aside embarrassing the Naval Academy while he skates through his priviliged set-aside life, if “embarrassing” means “bringing credit to” and “skates through his priviliged set-aside life” means “works his ass off while inspiring others.” Who decided to let this slacker in?
The Birddog 
Agreed. What a waste of the taxpayers’ money!
whatta dumbass you are
I just got the irony…you can ban me anytime now…sorry
Don’t feel bad, the whole “set aside” joke is kind of lost on me, and I typically pick up on irony pretty quickly.
Part of me is kind of happy that you don’t get it.
It’s not that I disagree with the sentiment behind the joke–I think it’s correct. But I didn’t get it for a while because I just don’t hear a clamoring of people using the term “set aside” (or similar terms, like “quota”) to describe ball players or mids.
I hear a handful of dimwits, like Fleming–same ones I’ve heard for three decades now–and I generally ignore them.
Point is, another fine piece of writing from Adam.
There’s only one guy who uses the term, but there’s an entire subculture of academy-followers who agree with it.
There is a whole subculture who agree, but I learned that it really never mattered on graduation day ’98. A companymate of mine (football player, but not really a set aside) said: “well, I guess I have to start being a grownup now.” That’s when I realized that in the real world–In or out of the navy–you’ll be judged on your own merits, and some succeed and some don’t. It doesn’t matter HOW you get in, it’s WHAT you get out.
That’s also when I stopped wasting my time on people who griped about set asides, varsity athletes, lazy people, etc. It all comes out in the wash.